Sunday, 1 May 2011

Realm of Chaos: a fascinating diversion

Illness has confined me to bed. So, not much progress on the hobby front at all.

But - I do happen to have the Realm of Chaos supplements to amuse me. Not physically, unfortunately, but in digital form. I endeavor to get the actual copies, but alas...they cost too much on eBay at the moment. Slave to Darkness seems to average out at about £50 and The Lost and the Damned..between £50 and £70, when I've seen it. Granted, these prices are not a million miles away from the current cost of rule books (£45 for the new WFB rule book, for instance), but I've got other stuff (you know, important stuff, like tires) to pay for...

Anyway, Realm of Chaos. Being bed bound, I thought I'd take a punt at creating a Chaos Champion using the rules presented in Slaves to Darkness:

This book mainly describes how the champions are created and then describes the rules around Khorne and Slaanesh. The Lost and the Damned completes the known Chaos pantheon by adding Nurgle and Tzeentch:

These books also contain extended army lists for the Chaos armies - focused on armies dedicated to specific gods. Initially, I wasn't too interested, because I quite liked the presentation of the Chaos army in the WFB Armies book. That army is interesting and random enough, without referring to any specific powers.

But, being bed ridden, I thought I'd investigate the Realm of Chaos. I read through most of the fantasy portions (there are 40k Rogue Trader elements as well) before trying to tackle creating a champion this morning. I started creation at about 8:45 and I completed the thing at about 10:00. That is, the champion and his bound daemon. I didn't even get around to his steed's chaos attributes. The process is quite laborious, but ...quite fun. I think I might do it again to see what I get.

Anyway, I thought I would choose a 240 point Chaos Champion. I did this because a typical Level 20 Chaos Knight is 250 points and a typical Level 20 Chaos Sorcerer is 240 points. I reasoned, therefore, that at 240 points, the character I'd get would be approximately equivalent to a Level 20 character.

Having generated the character, I know that he's not a magic user, so for comparative purposes, lets list the stat lines for a Level 20 Chaos Knight (at 250 points, so no extra equipment):

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Pts

4

8

8

5

4

3

8

3

10+3

10+3

10+3

10+3

250

The Chaos Knight gets D6 Chaos Attributes, so let's look at those now.

I rolled a 5 for the attributes:

Enormously Fat (Half movement)

Stupid (Subject to stupidity, -1 Int)

Spits Acid (Special attack)

Weapon Master (+2 WS)

Breathe Fire (+1 A (flaming))

So, our Chaos Knight looks like this now:

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Pts

2

10

8

5

4

3

8

4

10+3

9+3

10+3

10+3

250

Special Rules: Stupid, Spits Acid

The Chaos Champion started like this:

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Pts

4

3

3

3

3

1

3

1

7

7

7

7

240

So...not comparable, really. At least, not yet.

At 240 points, the Chaos Champion gets 8 rewards:

Reward - Daemon Weapon

Attribute - Warty Skin

Reward of Slaanesh - Face of a Keeper of Secrets

Attribute - Invisibility

Reward - Chaos Steed (not a Steed of Slaanesh)

Reward of Slaanesh - Spell Familiar

Attribute - Growth (X2)

Reward of Slaanesh - Face of a Mount of Slaanesh. (This attribute is void, because of the Keeper of Secrets reward above. I probably could have rerolled, but for simplicity sake, I assumed this would just 'fall away'.)

I'm not going to walk through every step to generate my Champion, but his final stat line looks like this:

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Pts

6

3

3

6

4

1

2

2

7

7

7

8

240

Special Rules: Fear 6" +1, Invisible, +1 Armour Save

Invisibility requires the services of a GM, as the character can move around unnoticed. He appears when he attacks, and can even go invisible again before he is attacked in return. The victim must pass an initiative test, or suffer a -4 penalty to hit the character. At Initiative 2, the chances of him getting this right are pretty low.

The Growth reward was interesting, because it multiplies stats, instead of adding to them. That works if the stats are not 1, unfortunately. In this case, he got a 1.5 X multiplier for wounds, which obviously gives him 1.5 W. I couldn't find a precedent for rounding up, so I rounded down to 1 W. M and S went up, though.

The Spell Familiar

The familiar is randomly generated. In this case, I got a Spell Familiar, which basically allows the familiar to store (and cast) one spell. I was lucky, in that it got the level 4 Slaanesh spell, Fleshy Curse.

This is it's statline:

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Pts

4

4

4

4

3

1

6

1

8

8

8

8

-

Magic Points: 14

The Daemon Weapon

Perhaps the reason that the generation of the Champion took so long was because he got a Daemon Weapon - It has a bound Daemon Prince, which is produced using the same process as generating a Champion with up to 9 rewards.

This is it's statline:

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Pts

5

4

4

10

5

2

10

1

8

9

9

9

-

These are its properties:

+1 to hit

Any wound automatically kills

One third of any slain victims strength is added to the bearers strength for the rest of the game

18 Strength Points. Once the bearer has accumulated 18 points of strength (as above) the weapon 'rests' and becomes a normal magical weapon with no properties.

The bearer can request that the Daemon leave the blade, but rolls on the Daemon Reaction chart.

So, all in all, the original Chaos Knight (from Warhammer Armies) is a much 'safer' bet, having more wounds and generally a better statlline, although in my case, his gifts were not very useful at all.

The Chaos Champion generated above was almost useless, but comes with an incredibly dangerous weapon and a really powerful spell.

Being the good citizen of the internet that I am, I would never recommend using torrents to explore copyrighted material apart from research purposes to allow you to decide if the purchased product is for you.

My own research efforts meant that I actually spent ages messing about with torrents and with file joining software and all sorts of hassle trying to extract these hallowed tomes from the ether that is the world wide web.

You could do the same, using torrent software, if you like, but to make it easier, allow me to recommend that you email me at gaj AT mogul DOT co DOT za, where I should be able to furnish you with a simpler option.